by Ken Johnstone

Created on: June 14, 2009

What do you do if you're a best selling crime author who has just closed the door on your most successful character after 17 novels and a lifespan covering 20 years? This is the question that faced Scots author Ian Rankin when he finally closed the door on Detective Inspector John Rebus of the Lothian's and Borders Police back in 2007 with the final novel in the Rebus series, appropriately called "Exit Music".

Well, if you're Ian Rankin, you immediately sit down and pen another cracking crime novel, this time without the hard drinking, chain smoking, womanizing, Detective Inspector as your leading character; and appropriately you call it "Doors Open". Of course, Rankin hasn't strayed too far from basics and what made him so successful, and sets the novel squarely in his home city of Edinburgh in Scotland.

The central character of the novel is Mike Mackenzie, a young dot com millionaire with time on his hands now he has sold off his software company. You know what they say; "the devil makes work for idle hands" (well, they say it in Scotland) and art loving Mackenzie has plenty of free time and a bulging bank account, and is fast growing very bored with the lifestyle of a idle playboy and man about town.

To spice up his life he comes up with a plan to relieve the National Gallery of Scotland of some of its prestigious (and expensive!) paintings in a daring heist and inveigles a couple of his wealthy friends in the art and financial world to join him. The beauty of the plan is that Mackenzie has no intention of ever getting caught, the difficult trick being to convince the authorities that no paintings are actually missing!

Unfortunately, while Mackenzie might have the logic and ability to conceive of such a plan, he lacks the criminal contacts and cop on to actually turn it into a reality, and so involves one of the biggest gangsters in the city to provide the muscle and criminal know how. This is when things begin to go haywire, and double cross follows double cross in a novel which winds its way to a nail biting conclusion.

So what did I think of the book, and does Rankin successfully manage the transformation from a "one character" author following the demise of Rebus?

Let's deal with the second part of the question first. The truth is that Rankin never really *WAS* a one character author. It's true that Rebus was/is his single most successful character, and the one who brought him both riches and prestige as a writer. (Including various literary

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